The leaders of the Green Party, UKIP, and Plaid Cymru, as well as representatives from the Liberal Democrats and SNP, have delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for an overhaul of the electoral system and more proportional representation.

The general election saw
the Greens receive 1.1 million votes and UKIP nearly four
million, but both parties only won one seat each.

The results have triggered a call for the First Past The Post
(FPTP) system, which handed the Scottish National Party (SNP) an
impressive 56 seats despite only gaining 1.4 million votes, to be
reformed in favor of a more representative system.

Speaking after the results of the general election, the Electoral
Reform Society said real majority governments in Britain are a
“fantasy” and parties need to collaborate to better
represent the UK.

“What we’ve seen in this election period is the two main
parties pursuing the fantasy of a majority, instead of dealing
with the reality that they should work with other parties – as
happens in countless nations around the world,” Deputy chief
executive of the Electoral Reform Society, Darren Hughes, said.

“Sadly this is a feature of our unfair and outdated voting
system, with parties still stuck in the majoritarian mindset of
the past. People’s voting habits have changed – they are shopping
around and voting for different parties – but our voting system
hasn’t caught up,” he argued.

Katie Ghose, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society
added: “This election delivered the least proportional result
in history. That’s because our two-party electoral system cannot
cope with the fact that people want to vote for a variety of
parties. It’s time we had a fairer voting system that accurately
translated votes into seats in Parliament.”

The Green Party, which sit on the opposite end of the political
compass to UKIP, has previously showed an interest in
collaborating with the right-wing party to further its cause for
electoral reform.

“Lots of people, who were in seats where they have never
thought about electoral reform before, are looking at their MP or
local council and are saying ‘How did we end up with that? That's
not what we wanted,” Bennett told the Press Association.

“So I think we will see a grassroots campaign and we will be
supporting that and very happy to join with anyone else who
supports that, working on an issue by issue basis as the Green
Party has always done.”

Speaking today she added: “The recent election has
demonstrated that we need real change in our constitution. We
haven’t seen significant reform at Westminster since women got
the vote, and that was 1918 – we shouldn’t get to the centenary
of that without getting a fair voting system. The Green Party
would have got at least 24 seats under a fair voting system on
May 7th– we only have one under our current
unfair system. We need a total rethink of the way we
vote.”

The photo-call outside Downing Street also gave UKIP the
opportunity to demonstrate a united front after the party’s near
descent into chaos last week. Farage said he was
"delighted" to be part of the campaign alongside
Carswell.

"I’m also delighted
to be joining with Douglas Carswell who has campaigned for
political reform for years and is leading the UKIP charge for
this in the House of Commons".

Carswell and Farage were photographed side by side, following a
week of disputes over how the party should spend £650,000 of
allocated government funds. The row was exacerbated by senior
UKIP members casting doubts over Farage's ability to lead the
party.

“Do you really think Douglas Carswell, who was a Conservative
MP in a safe Conservative seat with a 12,000 majority, who gave
all that up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nigel Farage, do
you really think that I’m not 100 percent pro UKIP and 100
percent wanting what’s best for Nigel?”